“Here’s the thing,” I said in the video I posted to my Instagram Stories, “It’s Bihu tomorrow and I am missing home so much! So if you’re dressing up this Bihu, if you’re wearing a mekhela sador, will you please send me your photos? Will you please make me feel like I am a part of your Bihu?”
The day before Bihu, and I was miserable. While it started with a mild case of homesickness, towards evening it had descended into full blown melancholia. That’s when I turned to my Instagram friends for help and asked them to share their Bihu with me. And how they delivered! Within minutes, a junior from university shared a photo of hers draped in a white and red mekhela sador saying how it was because I share her love for white and red. Another follower sent photos of her draped in muga mekhela sador, complete with the kopou in her hair and jetuka on her palms. “I’m not wearing a mekhela sador,” yet another friend wrote, “But I am sending you all my love and hugs for Bihu.” The photos kept coming. Juniors I hadn’t talked to for years reached out through my inbox. “Do you remember me?” one asked, “I’m from the 2008 batch.” She even sent me a video of a live Bihu performance, and the sound of the dhul made me want to cry. One particularly sweet junior sent me a photo of a platter of food. “Because Bihu isn’t complete without food,” she wrote. My heart was full, as was my soul. This, I realised, is what Bihu is ultimately about. It is about love.
I think this is a time for a disclaimer. Once, when I was talking to my best friend about a woman I call my sister, she interrupted. “Wait a minute,” she said, “Why do you refer to these women as your sisters?” “What else would you refer to them as?” I asked, confused. “Juniors, perhaps. Or someone I knew at college,” she replied. I thought hard about it, and realised that while I have just the one elder sister by birth, I have quite a few sisters by soul. There’s one who used to be in Delhi and is in now Pune. She’s the one I handed my phone over for one whole day without any hesitation. Then there’s one in Bangalore who is my chosen family. She shares my ukulele videos on Instagram and says things like “That’s my sister, folks!” I have a short but sweet list of such sisters. So I thought I should let you know that when I talk about a sister of mine, more often than not I am referring to these women.
Meanwhile, the celebrations continue. A classmate of mine, who married a junior of ours, uploads a video where his Assamese wife dances to the Bodo bagurumba as part of the Bihu festivities and it melts my heart to see her embracing his culture so wholly. Yet another sister of mine (now you know what I mean) shares a video where her entire family is dressed in similar attires and dancing Bihu in sync, aunts and nieces, cousins and sisters all laughing and dancing as a family. “I envy you your big family,” I tell her. My nuclear self, who has unknowingly strayed far away from the extended family, can’t even wrap her head around what it must take to keep the entire family together like that.
As for me, I wore an old mekhela sador that my Ma-in-law had sent years ago for Bihu, put on a new perfume that in my mind will now always be associated with spring, and sat with my feelings for a while.
My nephew was home with us that day, and so I spent some time doing puzzles with the kids. Then I went to drop him off at my sister’s, and we spent some time talking. It finally started feeling like Bihu. How lucky are we, we kept telling each other, to have each other? To have family living in the same city? To see our kids grow together as best buddies? Once I returned home, I made some calls. And we talked – my cousin in Dibrugarh, another in Diphu, a sister who lives in Bangalore, a sister-in-law in Tezpur. And as I talked and shared and cried and laughed, I started feeling whole. I might have been far away from home, yes, but I carry my home in my heart. It is not about the place but about the people, after all. And if anything, this Bihu proved to me that I am surrounded by the best kind.
Of dreaming, dabbling and daring... 